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Copyright, 1921, by 
The Atlantic Monthly Press, Inc. 



C1A626975 



MERRY CHRISTMAS 
from BOSTON 

By 
FRANCES LESTER WARNER 




THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS 
BOSTON, MASS. 



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.37 

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"A curbstone Saint Nicholas confronted by unbelief. 

OCT 25 1921 



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MERRY CHRISTMAS 
from BOSTON 

The holiday spirit crowds the busy streets of 
Boston just at dusk on the day before Christmas. 
Red and white and crystal in the windows, lights 
gleaming on the slippery cross-streets, throngs of 
last-moment shoppers in all directions, and here 
and there bright posters still cheerfully advising 
us to do our shopping early — we have time, as 
we hurry for the train, only to glance at one after 
another of the groups along the way. 

At the corner is a tall Santa Claus, bearded and 
red-cheeked, scarlet-coated, white-furred, with a 
sprig of holly in his cap ; and near him, looking up 



quizzically, stands a sturdy little chap, just too 
small to be a newsboy — his hands deep in his 
pockets, his cap on the back of his head, an ex- 
pression of shrewd suspicion in his skeptical eye. 
The two might be posing for a symbol of Mas- 
querade and Incredulity — a curbstone Saint 
Nicholas confronted by unbelief. 

Just around the next turn, there is a thicket of 
Christmas green outside a lighted flower-stall, 
and, surrounded by the sprays of hemlock and 
evergreen, a group of people buying wreaths. 

Not far from the station, near the market, we 
come upon a great packing-box half full of holly, 
and beside it a brown-faced little man, briskly 
winding a long string round and round the stiff 
stems of a great bunch of the glossy branches. 
Near him stands a young girl, fastening a spray of 
holly to her dark fur. 

At the station entrance the glimpses are more 
hurried : Salvation Army lassies ringing Christmas 
bells; red and white kettles swung from tripods; 
gay-covered Christmas magazines on the stand; 
and everywhere the shifting crowds. A tall man 
darts through the swinging door, skillfully carry- 
ing an unmistakable rocking-horse in his arms. 



We wonder how he plans to get that into his 
house, unnoticed. Here comes a cadet from a 
military school, making for the trainshed. And 
surely this is ,a family welcoming the daughter 
just home from college. Away they go — all the 
home-comers, all the home-goers, in the last 
rush-hour of the city before the holiday. 

Swept along by the spirit of the moment, we 
make our own dash with the proper crowd to the 
proper gate ; and as we stand there waiting for our 
own home-coming guest, we reflect that Boston 
certainly manages, in spite of the crowds and the 
hurry, to give the feeling of Merry Christmas, of 
loyalty to old customs and to the legend of 
Christmas cheer. And then suddenly we remember 
that the legends of old Boston were diflferent, that 
Boston's great day was Thanksgiving, and that 
Christmas came to Boston only recently — not 
with the old settlers, at all. 

What was it like when Christmas came to 
colonial Boston by stealth ? If we ourselves had 
been early settlers, we can easily see that we might 
have ignored Christmas ourselves. Christmas 
was a Mass, was it not ? — therefore of sus- 
picious flavor, to the Puritans. And if any merry 




Old England's Yuletide observances are always hard 
to ignore completely 



old souls among us had tried to celebrate the day 
(as Bradford says they did once in Plymouth in 
1621) by such games as "pitching ye barr, stoole- 
ball, & such-like sports," probably our "imple- 
ments" would have been taken away from us, as 
from the revelers at Plymouth, and we should 
have been admonished that there must be "no 
gaming and revelry in ye streets." 

If we wish to find out what Christmas was 
really like in the early days, we must not take the 
general statements of books. Most books on early 
customs say simply that Christmas was ignored. 
But if we look up the yellowed old diaries and 
letters and interleaved "Almanacks" of those 
days, we shall find that the ignoring was not such 
a simple matter as it might appear. A custom so 
firmly rooted as Old England's Yuletide observ- 
ance is always hard to ignore completely. 

We do not need to search the old diaries all 
through. We can simply find almost any journal 
written in the sixteen-hundreds, and turn to the 
date of December 25, and read the record there. 

" Shops open as usual. Hay, Hoop-poles, Wood, 
Faggotts, Charcole, Meat, Fewell, brought to 
Towne." 



"Very cold day, but Serene Morning, Sleds, 
Slays, and Horses pass as normally, and shops 
open." 

"Today I took occasion to dehort mine from 
Christmas keeping, and charged them to for- 
beare.'* 

" Nothing more about the pirates, but we wait 
for news from England about them. Christmas 
mass makes no grate noyse at present, som being 
indisposed." 

The first entries are from the diaries of Samuel 
Sewall, and the last is in a letter from Mr. Wait 
Winthrop, in 1699. 

But in 1714, Judge Sewall gives us a glimpse 
of the lively Christmas contest that arose when 
the "Royal Governour" undertook to spread the 
custom of celebrating the Lord's Supper on 
Christmas day, in Boston. As it happened, 
Christmas came that year on Saturday, on the 
day before Sunday. Here was a dilemma for the 
men of Boston. No industrious Bostonian would 
take two days of rest in succession. Therefore 
nobody could keep both Christmas and Sunday. 
One must choose. The members of the Church of 
England chose to keep Christmas sacred, and 



work on Sunday. All others worked on Christ- 
mas, and observed Sunday. Judge Sewall, in high 
indignation, reports the shocking deeds of his 
neighbor, General Nicholson, as follows: "The 
Church of England had the Lord's Supper yester- 
day, the last day of the week, but will not have it 
to-day, the day which the Lord hath made. And 
Gen'l Nicholson, who kept Satterday, was this 
Lord's Day Rummaging and Chittering with 
Wheelbarrows &c. to get aboard at Long wharf, 
and Firing Guns and Setting Sail. I thank God, 
I heard not, saw not any thing of it, but was 
quiet at the New North." 

It was rather simple, after all. If you were a 
Churchman, you kept Christmas holy, and went 
rummaging and chittering with wheelbarrows on 
Sunday. If you were a Puritan, you worshiped on 
the Lord's Day, and chittered on Christmas. 
Whichever you did, you were safe to offend some- 
body. 

All this was in the very early colonial days. But 
even as late as 1771, the little schoolgirl, Anna 
Green Winslow, writes of the opposition to 
Christmas observance in Boston : " The walking 
is so slippery & the air so cold that aunt chuses to 




"And General Nicholson, who kept Saturday, was 

this Lord's Day rummaging and chittering with 

wheelbarrows, etc." 



have me for her scoller these two days. And as 
to-morrow will be a holiday, so the pope and his 
associates have ordained, my aunt thinks not to 
trouble Mrs. Smith with me this week. . . . The 
snow is up to the peoples wast in some places in 
the street. I keept Christmas at home this year, 
& did a very good day's work, aunt says so." 

In the diary of a rather homesick young British 
soldier of the King's Own Regiment of Foot, we 
find an item for December 24, 1774, describing 
the Boston Christmas as he saw it; "Bad day; 
constant snow till evening, when it turned out 
rain and sleet. A soldier of the loth shot for 
desertion; the only thing done in remembrance 
of Christ-Mass Day." 

After the Revolution, when there was little to 
fear from Royal institutions, the feeling against 
Christmas subsided. Yet, in the year 1832, the 
Boston "Transcript" apologizes for omitting to 
print its paper on Christmas day: "We have 
determined, after mature deliberation, not to 
publish our paper tomorrow, and if it be our 
misfortune to offend any one of our subscribers, 
we cast ourselves on his charity, and are ready to 
abide the consequences." 



The *' Transcript " of 1 832 also prints an account 
of the way in which a lady of fashion, who was at 
the Tremont Theatre for the Christmas Eve 
performance, distinguished herself for her kind- 
ness: "A lady of high to7i^ wishing to retire from 
her box at the Tremont Theatre, and having too 
much kindness to disturb the gentlemen behind 
her, hopped over into the next box, from the door 
of which she made her egress. The delicacy of the 
movement excited the admiration of the whole 
house." 

A few years later, the "Transcript" goes so far 
as to suggest that certain of its subscribers have 
expressed a wish that the merchants would close 
their places of business on Christmas. And in the 
Boston "Daily Bee" of December 24, 1856, we 
find the item, "Christmas, it should be borne in 
mind, is now a legal holiday." 

But though Boston was rather late in making 
thorough capitulation to the charms of Christmas 
cheer, the homes of the town were by no means 
slow in adopting the custom of exchanging gifts. 
In the advertisements in the papers of 1840 and 
1850, we can read exactly what was to be had in 
the shops by way of "Rich and Elegant Goods, 



Suitable for Christmas Presents." The shoppers 
of those days must have scanned the advertising 
columns eagerly, when they could read of such 
things as "Reticules, Bouquet-Holders, Optic 
Views, Porte-Monnaies, Dissected Maps, Tee- 
totum counters. Albums, Long Embroidered 
Mitts, pearl Whist and Loo counters. Battledores, 
Sugar-Cutters, Decanters, one very splendid set 
of Porcelaine Mantel Ornaments," and "an in- 
numerable variety of unique, elegant, and costly 
articles, that the most fastidious seeker of re- 
cherche presents can desire." 

Indeed, there are several other gifts advertised 
that seem at the present day even more "re- 
cherche" than these: "German accordions, with 
or without semitones; Grace-Hoops, Champagne 
Openers, Castors, Gold-bowed Spectacles with 
Periscopic Glasses, Satin Stripe Chally de Laine 
Dresses for Five Dollars a Dress," and "Ruffled 
and Embroidered Shirt-Bosomed Shirts for the 
approaching holidays." 

It seems that every Christmas Eve and Christ- 
mas Day after the Revolution came to be crowded 
with gay events, duly advertised. In 1800, the 
Boston "Gazette" announces for Christmas 



evening : ** The Columbian Museum will be opened 
and elegantly illuminated This Evening, Dec. 25. 
There will be exhibited for the first time a new 
and correct likeness of the late illustrious Wash- 
ington (taken from a painting by the celebrated 
Stuart) from the life. Music suited to the 
Evening on the Grand Piano Forte by Mr. Dolli- 
ver. Also the whole variety of the Concert Organ, 
and Musical Clocks performed on this occasion." 
You might have taken your choice of a great 
variety of entertainments, on Christmas night, in 
1845. Your choice would have depended on 
whether your mood that evening was musical, 
reformatory, literary, or frivolous. The prices 
quoted for tickets, as will be seen, was somewhat 
lower than what we might pay to go to the same 
things now. 

Boston Lyceum : The Third Lecture of Mr. Ralph Waldo 
Emerson's course before this Institute will be delivered on 
Thursday evening, Dec. 25th, at the Odeon, at half-past 
seven o'clock. Subject, Swedenborg, or the Mystic. Single 
tickets, isi. 

Melodeon : Handel and Haydn Society, Oratorio of The 
Messiah. Tickets 50 cents each. 

Faneuil Hall: National Anti-Slavery Bazaar. 



I 



Tremont Temple: Temperance; Speaker J. B. Gough. 
Singing by the Peake Family. Admission 6^ cents. 

Boston Museum: Cinderella; 6}/2 and 8^ o'clock. Ad- 
mission 25 cents. 

All at the same time — Emerson, Gough, Cin- 
derella, Anti-Slavery, and the Handel and Haydn 
Society. You paid your money and took your 
choice. Or if your tastes were very ambitious 
indeed, you went over to Harrington's Museum, 
to see "Mr. Roberts, the gymnastic performer, 
Mr. Sweeny, the banjoist, and Master Chestnut 
the grapevine- twister," with a Phrenological Ex- 
amination thrown in. 

Even the modern practice of reviving ancient 
customs was a diversion of Bostonians in 1845. 
In the "Transcript" we read of a whimsical 
gentleman who instituted one such revival, as 
follows: **A gentleman, resolved on 'keeping 
Christmas' after the English fashion, determined 
that, if he could not institute the pageantry of the 
Courts, he would at least introduce some of the 
froHcking of the peasantry and provincials, and 
he made his preparations accordingly. His house 
was converted for the occasion into an evergreen 
bower, the woods many miles distant having been 




Even the modern practice of reviewing ancient customs 
was a diversion of Bostonians in 1845 



ff-^ 



ransacked for every variety of durable shrubbery." 
To make a long story short, this gentleman ar- 
ranged one bunch of "durable shrubbery" in the 
shape of a ball, suspended it from the ceiling, 
told the gentlemen of the party that it was to 
serve as mistletoe, did not confide this fact to the 
ladies of the party — and the "Transcript" 
reporter goes on discreetly to tell of the reviving 
events that ensued. 

Boston was a various old place, even in the days 
when Boylston Street was called "Frog Lane," 
when Washington Street was "The High Waye To 
Roxberrie," and when State Street was "The 
Great Streete to the Sea." The ghosts of old 
times flit beside us when we join in the Christmas 
celebrations in Boston to-day. 

For now it is the Night Before Christmas again. 
The Santa Claus at the corner has slipped off his 
mask and gone home. The subway crowds have 
scattered. But quietly, from far and near, come 
the people who love the gracious custom of carol- 
singing on the Hill. " Adeste, Fideles" — strangely 
harmonious, this candlelight, these ecclesiastical 
vestments and churchly hymns, on the ground of 
Increase Mather and John Cotton and Jonathan 




For now it is the night before Christmas again** 



Edwards and Hancock and Sewall — not so very 
far from Brimstone Corner itself. We are walking 
on well-contested ground when we go singing 
carols along the Boston streets. 

The windows all along the way look like white- 
framed Christmas pictures, — their subjects bor- 
rowed from the festival customs of many lands : 
here a Madonna, there a Star, or a Bambino, or a 
creche — sometimes a Yule-log in the fireplace, 
and a poinsettia on the sill — but everywhere 
white woodwork and tall candles and holly-berries, 
and pointed Christmas trees. In a Hghted base- 
ment window, we once saw a great black cat 
seated between two holly wreaths — a Hallowe'en 
cat in Christmas candlelight. 

We stand for a moment and watch the singers. 
Along one street goes the Cathedral Choir in 
vestments ; down a narrow side street goes a little 
group of singers to the doorway of a friend ; and 
here comes another choir, the leader carrying one 
of those old-fashioned peak-roofed lanterns. As 
the singers pause at the corner, the master of the 
choir directs the singing, with a tiny Hght on the 
tip of his baton, that flits and swings as we watch 
it, like a winter firefly in the dark. 



Trumpeters and choir-boys, lanterns and candle- 
light and ancient carols — it all seems very old 
and legendary and charming, perfectly in keeping 
with the spirit and traditions of the place. There 
is no incongruity now. One choir is blessed by the 
Bishop; another is led by the firefly baton; and 
a mediaeval trio of wandering "Waits" goes 
singing at its own sweet will. They thread the 
old streets together, on common ground. For the 
wide white doorways are open to all, under the 
colonial fanlights. The Christmas Spirit is cordial 
to all faiths, all singers, all wayfarers, and all 
ghosts, in the wintry streets of the Boston of 
to-day. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 077 982 9 



